Perhaps Too Much
by Determamfidd
Summary: Jack Harkness - in love and in loss for five billion years.
1. Chapter 1

So, as with my story 'Towing the Earth Home', this has been well and truly jossed. I thought this one up forever ago! But if you ignore the events of 'Children of Earth' (LALALALA), it should still work. Ish.

Not mine, no money, no sue. Feedback greatly appreciated!

* * *

_I have seen so much; perhaps too much. - _

The Face of Boe, 'Gridlock'

* * *

It should have rained.

Jack glared at the sky. Today of all days, it should have rained. A bit overcast, even — Cardiff was generally good for that.

The earth hit the casket with a dry rattle, and Jack glanced over to where Martha Milligan stood, her smart black coat drawn tightly around her. The veins on the back of her hands stood out purple and ropy in the bright sunlight. Jack averted his eyes quickly, returning them to the neat hole in the ground and the coffin. He hated the reminder that there were only two of them left now, Martha and himself. And Martha was an old woman, her slimness worn down to wire, her hair thick and white. While he —

Jack swallowed hard as the old Latin washed over him and the coffin was winched slowly into the dusty, clinging earth. He registered the old, veined hand throw a flower wrapped with a silvery tie into the hole, followed by a bundle of ferns tied about with an old-fashioned telephone cord. The muscles rippled along Jack's jaw as a glittering medal, a badge and finally a packet of Earl Grey wrapped with paper hit the polished wood with a dull _thump_, where the lifeless shell of his lover of over forty years now lay. The sky might be blue, but Jack's eyes were stormy as he reached slowly into his coat pocket and produced a very old coffee mug, the faded motto "World's Sexiest Boss" emblazoned on its side. Without looking to either side, he threw it into the grave. It made a very satisfying _crunch_.

He'd known this would happen someday. It had happened before, after all — he fell in love and then lost them. He would always lose them to the dragging weight of time, watch them succumb to their failing flesh. But every time, every _damn_ time, he allowed himself to become enraptured by them, by their voice or eyes or taste. So bright, sweet, so heady, their love — so intoxicating to hear their laugh or drink in their presence. He never stopped himself. Always in and out of love, alternating joy and heartbreak with the waning of their years. _And never learning,_ he thought miserably. _You stupid old fool, Harkness, you should have left long before this. Should have left him before he became home to you._

A hand touched him gently on the shoulder, and Jack jerked to look into Martha's sharp, tired old eyes. "Jack. You've drifted off again," she said gently. "It's all over."

Jack squeezed her thin hand and let it drop. "Just us left."

"Yeah," Martha hitched her handbag further onto her skinny, rounded shoulder. "No more Torchwood Mark Three."

"Mark Seven's doing well," said Jack quickly, and Martha smiled sadly.

"Jack. I _know_."

Standing in a graveyard on a blindingly bright April afternoon, Jack knew as well. Somewhere. He cleared his throat. "I'll miss him."

"_Jack_." Martha shook her head. "You can't say it, even now?"

He clenched his fists in his coat pockets. "No." He looked up at her. "It means he's really gone."

She slipped her arm under his, and shook his young, healthy body against hers slightly. He could feel the brittleness of her. "C'mon, you. Buy an old lady a drink."

"Sure, _and_ one for you."

She snorted. "Only you."

"That's what I'm afraid of," he muttered, eyeing Ianto's unfilled grave. "Wait up."

Martha watched in resignation and not a little annoyance as Jack dropped lightly into the hole and fished out a piece of broken china. "Jack Harkness, you can't just jump into someone's _grave_," she said with exasperation.

"Why not?" Jack hoisted himself out and inspected his prize. It was the broken off handle. "Ianto sure as hell wouldn't mind."

Martha shook her head, amusement winning out over annoyance. "A keepsake?"

"Better than a lock of hair." Jack carefully put the piece back into his pocket. The slight weight of it was reassuring. "It was his favourite."

Martha's eyes softened. "C'mere," she said softly, opening her arms, and Jack returned the embrace carefully. "I'll miss him too," she murmured against Jack's thick coat.

Jack breathed in sharply through his nose, breaking the embrace. His eyes felt drier than the earth that held his lover's corpse. "I need to get drunk."

As he led Martha slowly through the sun-filled graveyard, light bouncing off the polished stones, Jack spared a tiny glance back to the yawning hole that had claimed Ianto, would claim the wonderful old woman at his side, but would never, never welcome Captain Jack Harkness.

_Goodbye, Yan_.

* * *

Martha had left at nine-thirty. The pub was getting too noisy — besides, she couldn't drink like she used to.

_And never will again,_ thought Jack morosely, staring dully into his umpteenth glass of cheap beer. _I'll miss our parties — Gwen was such a loopy drunk. Martha and Tom would dance badly and kiss sloppily, their smiles warmer than the wine._ He took another swig. _And Ianto's face would get flushed and his accent would grow so thick you could bounce rocks off it._ The knot in his stomach tightened unbearably.

"You," said an acerbic voice behind him, "are broadcasting misery all over this hemisphere, you know that?"

"Pull up a chair," slurred Jack. He didn't waster precious drinking energy turning around.

A familiar brown and tan blur sat at the barstool beside him. "What've they got?"

"No bananas."

"Pity. Oh well, a..." the Doctor peered at the drinks menu, "... a Screaming Orgasm."

Jack just grunted.

The Doctor blanched. "Blimey, you really _are_ upset. What's happened?"

"Ianto's dead," Jack drained his glass and slammed it down on the benchtop. "More."

"Oh Jack," the Doctor said sadly. "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, well," said Jack bitterly, and left it there.

The Doctor studied him for a beat, and then sucked a sharp breath through his teeth. "What on earth are you drinking that stuff for? The Ianto Jones I remember knew his drink — he'd have been disgusted with you, Jack, to see you guzzling this bottom-shelf... _trash_!"

"Yeah," Jack snorted. "And wouldn't let me kiss him with beer-breath."

"There you are then, Bob's your uncle! Well, not your uncle obviously... anyway," and the Doctor leaned in conspiratorially. " I _might_ have a bottle of the 1955 prize-winning original Penfolds Grange in the TARDIS cryogenisis lab, and I _might_ have a bottle of the 45 year old Islay single malt Laphroaig whisky in the second upstairs bathroom cupboard, but most importantly, I absolutely _do_ have a whole box of the hangover cure from Maxxarolix Three in the fridge."

Jack blinked. "I'm there."

The Doctor grinned smugly. "Thought so."

* * *

Two hours later, Jack was attempting to get the Doctor drunk, with some success.

"Nah, nah, right, she did this _thing_, right... with her voice, an'... an' it made me feel like a sodding kid of only _a hunnerd_ and she's what, hunnerdanforty? A hunnerdanfortyfi'?" The Doctor blew a raspberry. "Sheer cheek. Which, by the way, was... a _ver' nicecheek_, ver' nice. All of 'em. Twice. Nah, wait..." he scratched at his stomach contentedly. "S'hard talking reg'erashuns in human. Anyway, I was a lot younger then."

Jack gazed blearily at the Doctor. " 'M older than you now," he smirked.

The Doctor drew himself up haughtily, spoiled slightly by the swaying of his torso and his position sprawled on the TARDIS grating: his legs outstretched, his back against the console and the whisky bottle in his hand. "Only technic'ly," he said, waving an unsteady finger at Jack.

Jack was lying on his back on the driver's wide couch-like seat, his legs dangling idly and a priceless bottle of champagne from 19th century France dangling precariously in his grip. "Technic'ly's valid," he insisted.

The Doctor blew another raspberry at Jack this time and pulled at the whisky bottle. "Only in a linear... whatsit," he said, wiping at his lips.

"Ha!" Jack smirked. "So, who was she?"

"Hmm?" Who was wha?"

"The woman with the..."Jack's free hand circled as he searched for words that made sense, "voice thingy."

"Her! Aw, she was brilliant... reallyreallybrilliant... everyone I know isreallyreallybrilliant," The Doctor grinned broadly at Jack, "cept you — you're just a l'ilbitbrilliant..."

"Shut up, stupid Time-Lord... time-_doofus_." Jack suddenly turned himself onto his stomach, holding onto the frayed edge of the chair. "Oh, hang on, oh, oh! I know the voice! Ianto had the voice! He did that about _folding_ right, an' it was _hilarious_ if I didn't do it, right, I mean... folding's boring, who folds, tell me that, huh, who folds?"

"Who folds," the Doctor repeated owlishly, nodding.

"Right! I mean, life's is... _stupid_ enough without, without, without _folding_, am I right?" Jack nodded emphatically himself. "Just... throwitinadrawer, do it later... and Yan did this thing with the voice and the tappy foot and the arms. An' sometimes..." Grinning, Jack leaned down to where the Doctor sprawled, his tie undone, and said confidentially, "_I did it on purpose._"

The Doctor spat whisky onto his trousers and hollered, "Bad Jack!", pointing a long, accusatory finger in the rough direction of Jack's left ear. "Very bad Jack!" He fell abruptly silent, and then his brown eyes widened comically and he blurted. "Me too!"

Jack actually fell off the chair with laughter, landing heavily on the grating, his sides aching. "Bad..." he managed to gasp, "very bad Doctor!"

The Doctor slung an arm around Jack to keep himself upright as the two men roared and howled with laughter. "Very bad Doctor!" he giggled, clinking his whisky bottle against Jack's champagne. Jack sniggered a bit and took a long swig. "Not that it was _folding_ that got me the voice, oh nononono... more the getting us into random deadly peril or losing the TARDIS or forgetting the guidebook or the rulebook or some other book..."

"What'd you do?" Jack stared muzzily at his friend.

"Winged it!" the Doctor announced proudly, and Jack dissolved into laughter again.

"To winging it!" he yelled, waving his champagne.

"Ha! To winging it!" The Doctor stood unsteadily. "An... bloody _brilliant_ whisky!"

Jack stood also, weaving uncertainly. "To brilliant people!"

"Friends!"

"To bananas!" This offering of Jack's got a cheer from the Doctor. Jack saluted, wobbling.

"To... old lovers," the Doctor said, suddenly soft, and Jack's hand dropped heavily from its salute. He could feel the weight of the millennia pressing down on him. He straightened, and held the champagne at arms' length.

"To Ianto Jones," he said loudly and formally, and his eyes finally, finally started to prick.

"To Romanadvoratrelundar," whispered the Doctor, and drank.

In the silence that followed, Jack watched him, the second of his three great loves, and the pricking behind his eyes grew stronger. He sat heavily back down on the driver's chair, carefully put the champagne down and buried his face in clammy hands. He could feel a sob building, somewhere in that tight place in his chest.

"Hey now, Jack, c'mon," a long-fingered hand patted Jack inexpertly on the back, moving clumsily to his shoulders as the Doctor clambered next to Jack on the chair. "It's hard, Jack, I know it's hard, there ya go, I'm here, c'mon, there's my Jack, so brave, Jack..."

The sob was choked between Jack's nerveless fingers. The second followed hard on its heels, and suddenly Jack's body was twisted with his grief, a giant hand wringing his insides as he poured his anger , sorrow, fear and love onto the Doctor's shoulder. Skinny arms wrapped around him and rocked him gently side to side, a double-heartbeat thrummed under his ear, and a well-loved voice murmured comfort, the vibration echoing in an alien ribcage. "It's okay, Jack, it's all right, I'm here, you're not alone, Jack, I'm here, so brave, my Jack, there you go..."

Jack shuddered and fought his shaking breath as the storm of his grief subsided, and raised his head to look into the Doctor's bright, sad eyes. "Promise?" he whispered unsteadily.

The Doctor took Jack's face in his palms in a way that made him think of leather and gas-masks and blue eyes like a diamond drill. "Jack," the Doctor said in a low, urgent voice. "You will know me your whole, long life. I promise you that. You are not alone." And the Doctor leaned in swiftly and kissed Jack voluntarily for the first time — hard and burning and full of memory.

"Doc... Doctor?" Jack gasped when he was released. The Doctor seemed amused by Jack's discomfiture.

"Captain?"

"I, ah... think I need more convincing..."

"Oh, get off."

~**~ 


	2. Chapter 2

_20,000 years later:_

His skin was waxy now, the lines deeper, and it had an odd pallor. Jack ignored it as he ignored his iron-grey hair.

He idly tapped his fingers on his communit, glancing at the time, a habit that had always amused his lovers. What need had he, they teased, to know the time? It was the last thing he should think about.

The war dragged on and on, and it was all Jack could do to organise the supply dumps and the weapons as every resource on the little planet of Phennik Three was stretched to breaking point. He smiled ruefully — and being a resistance fighter always sounded so _glamorous_.

The siren cut through the air with a shrill wail and Jack sighed heavily, before pulling on his polycarbide helmet and striding into the corridor. "At ease, corporal," he called to the pretty young fellow at the main doors, "Enemy bombardment at the Eastern flank, as expected?"

"Yes sir, Captain Harkness, sir," the corporal barked, and Jack winced.

"With the..." he waved his hand dismissively, "yes sir no sir business... just, no. How many times, just call me Jack. Captain Jack if you _really_ must. I more or less recognise the name."

"Yes, si-," the young man stopped. "Jack. Um. They're getting further in, must have hit the depot areas. They'll be on their way here."

"Terrific," drawled Jack, "just when I'd got my desk how I like it."

"Shouldn't you be making plans to evacuate, si... Cap... uh, Jack?"

"Probably." Jack inhaled loudly, feeling his lungs expand slowly. "Buuuut... there are two villages out there, totally unprotected and the Sontarans will be sending in ground troops after the bombardment's over. They'll be expecting no opposition."

"But... the villages won't be attacked, ah, Jack. There's nothing there. Just people. No strategic positions, no storage facilities - nothing the Enemy wants."

Jack cocked his head. "But they'll go there anyway. Just for _kicks_."

"What are you going to do?" The young soldier's voice was full of trepidation.

Jack Harkness, sole remaining custodian of the Torchwood Archive and by now an intergalactic legend, grinned and pocketed the boy's gun. "I fully intend to disappoint them."

"Where are you going?" the corporal demanded in alarm. Jack span back on his heel, his coat flying and grabbed the beautiful blue tentacles that fluttered delicately around the young fellow's face.

"Wish me luck," Jack murmured, kissed the Phennik harshly (so _young_, so _fresh_), revelling in the feel of the fronds curling around his wrist. "Going out for a walk."

The Phennik Corporal landed against the doorjamb in a daze, and focused just in time to see a long coat swish out the door, and hear the words, "I may be some time!" float back.

* * *

The energy weapons sizzled and spat through the murky air and the heady scent of ozone filled Jack's nostrils and made him feel a trifle giddy. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, now, now, now!" he yelled, pushing the stumbling civilians one by one into the supply truck he had 'borrowed'. Behind them, the screams of the dying floated eerily in the dirty mist. "Go, go, go!"

Jack helped the last clamber into the truck, a child of about seven, the fronds he so admired in the adults just stubby fins under her ears. He paused slightly before closing the door, turning to face them.

"I am getting you out of here," he said in a steely voice, meeting frightened, fervent eyes packed into the gloom. "That is a promise."

"Mum?" the little girl asked hopefully with a hitch in her voice, her green eyes enormous.

Jack hesitated, and then looked away. "Sorry, kid," he mumbled, and abruptly closed the door on her thin wails. He leaned against them heavily for a second, feeling his ancient, steady heartbeat push his thickening blood through his body. The panic in the truck battered against his mind's defences, and for a moment he considered contacting the Doctor.

But no, he decided. It had only been 1,948 years, three months and two days Earth Standard since the Doctor had dropped in on Jack, and it had become an almost unspoken rule now — any and all scrapes they got themselves into were their own affair. The Doctor's visit wasn't due for another 51 years and eight months (and 29 days, Jack's mind added treacherously).

There were one or two natural exceptions to the rule, obviously — Daleks or Gallifreyan artifacts or the Time Agency or Torchwood. But beyond that, as the Doctor said, he was a big boy now. Twenty-two thousand years was plenty old enough to learn to fix his own problems.

Jack shook himself and strode around the truck to the front cabin, pulling out the young soldier's gun as he started the engine. He'd already ferried three truckloads of civilians to the dubious safety of the supply depot, and fully expected to keep driving back and forth all night.

The truck bounced and clattered over the crude gravel supply line, and Jack's eyes darted at the rocky scree bordering the upcoming turn. He had been ambushed by a Scout party of twelve the second time and he'd had to die twice before the two surviving Sontarans got the message and teleported back for further instructions.

The jolting of the truck made a small silken bag bounce up and down on Jack's chest where it hung from his neck. He fingered it idly as he turned the truck into the covered bend, his other hand tightening on the wheel.

_Just because Phennik Three is close to Rutan homespace,_ he thought quietly and sadly. _All these people — a tribal, farming civilisation. Even if we win, we've introduced weapons and technology that will destroy their way of life forever._

His foot slammed down as the truck cleared another turn and a line of squat, blocky figures raised their energy blasters at him. "Oh, fantastic."

"You!" one of them strode out and narrowed his deep-set eyes at Jack. "Get out of that transport!"

"You don't want me to do that," Jack called back, fumbling in his pockets. "Dammit," he hissed as his modified Fargins-Blecker Immobiliser caught in the lining of his pocket. He ripped it free and picked up the Corporal's ballistic rifle in his other hand. "I hate getting my boots muddy!" he hollered out the window, fumbling with the safety.

"Then this will not be a day you are particularly fond of!" barked the squad leader.

"No shit," Jack muttered to himself. "Who are you?"

"You have no need of my name."

"I feel that it is only polite to tell a valiant enemy your name before sending him on, don't you?" Jack yelled.

"You have a point." The Sontaran drew himself up to his not-terribly-impressive height. "I am Squadron Leader Strell of the Fourteenth Sontaran Battle Fleet. And you are?"

"Only the 14th? I think I'm insulted," Jack tensed his muscles. "I'll complain, see if I don't."

"Who are you, warrior?" The Sontaran insisted. Jack's boots hit the mud and he slammed the cabin door shut.

"Oh didn't I say?" He grinned. "Captain Jack Harkness."

The Sontaran's jaw dropped infinitesimally, but he rallied magnificently. "Hold firm, men," he snapped at his squad. Jack enjoyed their discomfiture probably more than he should.

"Oh, please do, I like being held firm." Jack's grin turned wicked.

"Is this some sort of... innuendo?" the Sontaran wheeled back to face Jack, his lumpen face twisted with distaste. Evidently they knew _all_ about him.

Jack regarded him pityingly. "Y'know, that's what's known as a leading question, Strelly-boy."

"You will not call me that!"

Jack threw his head back and laughed. "Or what? What can you possibly do to _me_?"

"Or... and the Sontaran gestured to his men, "we destroy the transport." Eleven energy blasters re-aimed at the truck. Jack's two weapons jumped in his fists.

"You will not harm them," he said slowly and evenly.

"Or _what_?" hissed Strell.

Jack's mouth tightened. "Or _this_." And nine of the twelve Sontarans dropped like puppets as Jack, the strongest psionic power the universe had known for three millennia now, smashed into their minds.

"Squadron... Leader!"

"Don't look so hurt, they're only asleep," Jack cocked his head. "And I left you two."

Strell gaped at his two remaining soldiers, who gaped back, before all three energy weapons were blasting holes in Jack's nice new shirt.

* * *

Being dead was always so relaxing, Jack decided, like sleeping in on Sundays. If this dirtball actually had Sundays. He stood slowly and stiffly, and brushed himself off, noting with distaste the burns on his clothes. _On the downside, less shirt, on the upside, more chest, _he grinned. Then he grasped at his neck in panic.

The string had been cut. On his pouch.

He span on the spot frantically, and then noticed that the truck was also gone. Dropping onto the ground, he scrabbled about in the mud for a moment, then shook his head and stumbled towards the tire tracks leading along the road.

"They're fine," said a voice behind him cheerfully.

Jack span on his heel, his hand automatically reaching for an immobiliser that wasn't there. The young woman before him tutted slightly.

"Interesting," she mused. "You're the strongest psi-talent I've ever seen, and you still reach for a weapon."

Jack tried to get his fast breathing under control. "Force of habit," he drawled, his eyes studying her stance critically. Strong, light, fast — she was a fighter. A dangerous one.

"Looking for this?" She held the pouch up by its broken string. Jack lunged forward slightly, and stopped when she held out a delicate finger. "Ah- ah- ah... first I'd _quite_ like to know who you are."

"Captain Jack Harkness," he said. "Can I have my pouch back, now?"

She threw it to him. "Don't know why you're so panicked about a little bag of white dirt."

Jack caught it with trembling hands. "You wouldn't understand," he turned his back on her and knotted the broken string with shaking fingers, replacing it around his neck. "Where are they?"

"Who?" The woman sat down lithely on a rock, her legs swinging idly.

"The Sontarans, the Phennik farmers... take your pick," he said, a slight edge in his voice.

She waved a hand airily. "The Phenniks are back at the supply depot, and the Sontarans got their arses handed to them."

"By you?" Jack was sceptical.

"By me," she said levelly.

"Then, thanks," Jack allowed the tension to bleed out of his shoulders. "So who are you?"

"A friend," she shrugged. "Just passing through."

Jack laughed — ironic that he should be thinking of the Doctor today, and then those words were said once more. "No, really."

"You're a bit fascinating, though," she continued, ignoring his sarcasm. "They say you're going to live forever."

"So you have heard of me, and God, I hope not," Jack said drily. "You can only hear the same joke so many times."

She stood and walked towards him, her birdlike head cocked to one side. "You say 'God', still," she mused quietly.

Jack sighed, looking down at his mud-spattered boots. "I'm old."

Her long-fingered hand, familiar in some strange way, hovered uncertainly over Jack's torn shirt, his waxy, statue-like chest. "How old?" she breathed.

"Very."

Her fingers brushed his collarbone, dragged over the string of his pouch. "How old... exactly?"

Jack caught her hand gently. "Next September, Standard Earth time, I turn twenty-two thousand, four hundred and eighty-three."

Her breath hitched slightly. " You must have seen so much."

"Yeah. Sometimes I think... but nah. There's always more. The universe is so damn _big_. A hundred million lifetimes wouldn't be enough — even for a provincial boy from Boeshane." Jack grinned reflectively, turning her strangely familiar hands over and over in his. How vital hers looked against the marble-deep cuts of the wrinkles on his knuckles, that pallid, odd sheen.

"What was that," she asked suddenly, "when you were dead, and then you were alive, and time stopped around you?"

Jack's head jerked up and he searched her eyes. "Ah. That's when I die, come back, and time stops."

"I mean it."

"So do I. Not everyone can sense it." He held his fingers to her temple, waiting for permission. "May I?"

She backed away from him slightly, her eyes suspicious, and Jack rushed to reassure her. "Look, I just want to know where you got this time-sense. I won't look at anything you don't want me to look at. Believe me, I'm an old-fashioned kind of guy."

That made her smile, and she closed her eyes. Jack delved into her mind.

__

"That was quick," she said in surprise.

"There was remarkably little you actually wanted me to look at," he said with a smirk. "Don't trust me?"

"I think," and she grinned then, a full beaming smile, "I think I could trust you with my life, Captain Jack Harkness, but never with my body!"

He pulled at his lower lip. "I resent that totally true implication," he said finally, and her laugh tinkled like that of another blonde girl's - dead millennia ago. "Will I see you again... Jenny?"

"If you're lucky," she said archly, her eyes glittering as they roamed over him. Then she threw her little arms about his neck and her soft warm mouth moved over his, and for a minute, Jack Harkness was very, very lucky.

"Hope I'm that lucky next time," he said, as the blonde cleared her throat and pulled what looked like one of the Sontaran long-range field teleports from her back pocket. "God-speed, Jenny."

"See ya, Jack," she readied herself, and then stopped. "One more thing..."

"Hmm?" Jack turned back to the lithe, vibrant little thing.

"Why the white dust in the bag?"

Jack snorted softly. "Because, twenty thousand years ago, I was the World's Sexiest Boss."

She stared at him, and then nodded. "You must have loved them, whoever they were," she said, a sad half-smile tugging her lips. Before Jack could say anything in response to this... extraordinary statement, she had actually started to babble. "Well, I gotta get running! Things to do, people to see, not the other way round, naughty man, better get a move on, ally-oop! Sontarans don't kick their own arses, you know!" And her hand slammed down and she disappeared in a flash of blue light and the smell of ozone.

Jack almost loved her, this strange girl, in that moment.


	3. Chapter 3

"Time-locked, _my arse!_" Jack screamed as he hurtled into the clammy blackness of space.

The Dalek attempted to swivel its headpiece, but Jack clung stubbornly to its frame, its malevolent pilot freezing in the sub-zero voids without its environmental protection. Jack gritted his teeth and yanked hard at the metal dome, his prosthetic arm grating against his shoulder-bone and his fingers skidding over the icy metal carapace. The heavy crown toppled and span almost gracefully away into the dark, and the nightmare creature inside struggled briefly, stubby tentacles flickering, before floating motionlessly after. Jack expelled the last breath in his lungs, and succumbed to his inevitable death.

He was alive for a few, horrifying seconds, the vacuum sucking greedily at his body, before he died again.

And again.

And again.

* * *

_One day previously_

"How does it feel?" Bast smiled at Jack as he flexed his foot experimentally.

"Just like a bought one," he grinned back. "Its good, thanks."

She shook her head, and began to tidy up the surgical equipment. "You have to take better care of yourself, Jack. You're falling to pieces."

He stood carefully, testing the new foot. "But Bast, my darling, then I wouldn't see you as often as I like."

She snorted, her veil fluttering at her ear. "Flattery will get you nowhere."

He caught and span her into his arms, "You sure about that?" he winked roguishly down at her. She smacked his arms until he let her go.

"Get off, you great lummox!"

"Can't blame a guy for trying," he wiped his now redundant plasteel hand through his pure-white hair.

"A normal guy, sure," she said a bit snippily.

"So what's the verdict, Doc?"

She straightened her robes and whiskers, seemingly considering her answer. Jack waited patiently. He'd known and loved her too long to rush her.

"Jack," she said seriously and slowly, almost drawling his name, "when I met you, you were the picture of normal, human health, with one or two exceptions. Those exceptions are now the rule. We can't halt the mutation."

Jack just kept waiting, watching her gently.

She spread her paws helplessly. "I'm sorry, Jack. You're changing slowly. Your blood is thicker than syrup and your arteries have hardened like stone. Your skin, even…" she gestured to his face. "And you don't help matters, scattering limbs that will never perish over this planet or that in stupid little wars."

"I'm trying to confuse the archaeologists," Jack smirked.

"I mean it, Jack! You're thirty-percent prosthetic now. You have to look after yourself better!"

"Never happen, darling," he told her, and kissed her gently. "I'm way, _way_ too set in my habits by now."

"Jack…" her luminous green eyes glimmered wetly, "you might be 140 thousand years old, but you're not indestructible. Please. Try. For me."

He smoothed his flesh-and-bone hand over her face, the contrast between her soft fawn-coloured fur and his own darkening skin with its sheen like cracked wet leather alarming, even to his eyes. "Bast, I'll try."

She sighed, and pushed her face against his hand. "That's all I ask."

* * *

"Is the prisoner alive?"

"The prisoner remains alive."

"Then prepare the chamber!"

"I obey."

"We will have the secret!"

"We will never die!"

Jack died.

* * *

Time passes.

He spends far more time dead than alive. When he does reanimate, it is to a sense of something monstrously wrong. He has learned to time his psychic distress call to within a second of life re-entering his body.

His body…

Monstrously wrong, yes. He can no longer feel his fingers or toes, and this lack of sensation grows stronger with each flush of life. The pain has caused him to die of its own accord innumerable times.

He has memorised the ceiling above the bed where he has been strapped for — he doesn't know how long. The malicious minds of the daleks that scurry around him seem to think he has been there for a very long time.

_Didn't look after myself very well, Bast my love,_ he thinks bitterly, before dying again.

* * *

"Is he staying this time?" The voice was achingly familiar, and yet not.

"Looks like it," came the reply. "Now take it easy, you've been a captive for years…"

Jack tried to speak, but his jaw simply worked uselessly. Reverting to mindspeech, he said, _where am I?_

The female voice was sardonic as she said, "well, you weren't wrong, Doctor. A psi-talent indeed. So this is the source of the distress call."

"You're in the TARDIS," came the familiar, not-familiar voice. "You're safe."

Jack's eyes flew open, and though he could make out no shapes, the tall blur and presence of that well-known mind was enough. _Doctor!_

"He evidently knows you," the female said cheerily.

"Evidently," the Doctor growled. "I would prefer it, Romana, if you kept your observations to yourself."

"I'm sure you would, Doctor. I'm sure you would." The amused lilt in the woman's voice was unmistakable, and Jack felt the corners of his lips turn up despite himself. "See, our guest agrees with me."

"Then he has no manners," the Doctor sniffed. "Now kindly stop it, this is extremely serious."

_You've always known I had no manners, Doc,_ Jack sent.

"No, I haven't. Not always." The Doctor's voice was deadly quiet. "You know me, but I certainly don't know you. This has the potential to be catastrophic."

Jack's brow furrowed. _You're the Doctor. You know everything._

"I take it back. He doesn't know you _at all_," the woman drawled.

"But it's not only that. You… distort time in some way. You feel…"

_Wrong?_ Jack supplied, amusement warring with irritation.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "I wouldn't go that far…"

_You did once_.

"Now stop it, stop that at once!" The Doctor's hand smacked down on a surface by Jack's head. "Then there's the way you've drawn all that… that… how old are you?"

_One hundred and forty-two thousand, six-hundred and forty-three,_ Jack replied. _No wait, skipped one, forty-four. Getting on a bit._

"That's… that's impossible," the woman whispered.

"Haven't I taught you anything, Romana?" the Doctor's voice was soft. "Now, don't tell me your name, but... How long have you known me?"

_One hundred and forty-two thousand, six-hundred and twelve years,_ and Jack's mindtone resonated with affection._You're lousy at remembering weddings, been late to mine twice. You love bananas, tea and single-malt whisky. You lie about your age constantly. You flap about in a small crisis, but are brutally efficient in a big one. You hit the TARDIS because she likes it. And you taste_ fantastic.

A resounding silence, and then Romana said, "I guess he does know you."

Jack sighed. _May I establish contact? It could save a lot of time._

"Time's the last thing you ought to worry about," the Doctor said severely, but long fingers obediently went to Jack's temples. "Contact."

Jack's first impression was of golden hair, but he quickly sorted that out to mean the woman beside him, Romana. Of the Doctor himself, he received an image of a tall man with shoulder-length wavy brown hair, soft eyes and a bottle-green velvet jacket. And sadness, overwhelming sadness, and a weariness that felt heavier than the eons Jack carried with him.

Jack's eyes flew open. _Take them away_.

The long fingers that smelled so like the Doctor he knew gently released him. "Is there something wrong?"

_I know what happens. I can't be here_.

"Happens?" Romana said apprehensively.

_Now. Here and now. This is the Time-War, right? I was captured by Daleks, I know that much. They've done something to my body, I know that too. But most importantly, I know what happens next — and so I've got to go._

"You're in no state to go anywhere," the Doctor said firmly. "And I can contain my curiosity."

_No, you can't! You've never been able to!_

"It's like he's your mother," Romana marvelled.

_I did _not_ need that image, thanks, President Romanadvoratrelundar._

"The point is moot anyw - how do you know her full name?" the Doctor interrupted himself.

_Know yours, too._ Jack grinned, remembering the circumstances in which he'd received it.

The Doctor's shock was palpable. "I tell you my name."

_Yup._

"_Why?_"

_So that someone remembers it for you after you're gone._ Jack blinked rapidly. _Why can't I see?_

"We…" Romana's voice was still awed. "We, ah… think the time you spent floating in the vacuum before the Daleks picked you up has freeze-dried you somewhat and then they… compounded the damage when they started their experiment…"

_So what's the verdict, Doc?_ It had seemed like only days ago he had said that to his beloved Bast. Now it appeared that it was years ago. How many birthdays had he missed, strapped to a metal table?

"I'm sorry," said the Doctor gently. "I am so, so sorry. They've cut off your head."

_They wha…?_ That was just… stupid. He hadn't heard right.

"Romana thinks that they tried to replicate your renewing cells in order to build more Daleks with them, but when the cloned cells acted exactly the same as normal human tissue matter, they started harvesting yours. They… they got as far as your head before…"

_I'm a head,_ Jack said blankly.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor whispered. Those long fingers were touching his cheek, the pads catching on the rough leathery grooves.

_A head_.

"Do you think he's still in shock?" Romana whispered.

A slow, thin wail built somewhere inside Jack, inside the place his chest should be. _Show. Me._

"I don't think you ought to…"

Jack's mouth worked silently around the syllables of the Doctor's true, secret name, and his powerful mind started to shriek. _**DOCTOR. SHOW ME.**_

The fingers were back at his temple. "Then use my eyes."

Jack blinked once, and then was abruptly looking out at the TARDIS, though it looked so different, gothic even. A slight blonde woman with an imperious bearing but a worried expression gripped the edge of the console, her eyes never leaving the Doctor's (now Jack's) green-clad form. He could feel the double-heartbeat thudding rapidly as the Doctor allowed Jack more control of his body. Jack swallowed once with the Doctor's throat, met Romana's eyes, and then looked down to where something small and pitiful lay on the console, a metal cap covering a bloody neck-stump streaked with grey, dead flesh.

_Easy,_ came this young Doctor's voice inside their shared body. _Look, it's not all over, they'll be able to build you a synthskin body, just as good as the old one…_

_The old one was mine!_ Jack's mind wailed its grief.

_It's not that bad,_ the Doctor insisted. _You're here, you're alive! You'll make it work — are you telling me you're seriously going to give up after one hundred and forty-two thousand, six-hundred and forty-four years?_

_I'm a… head._ Jack's grief started to wax hysterical. _A head. Oh my god, look at me…_

His blue eyes were cloudy, and the rough skin on his face was still that same browned wet-leather look he'd had for the last fifteen thousand years. His thick shock of bright white hair was shaved on one side, and a pair of ropy scars ran over the bare patch. "They did something to my brain as well?" he burst out.

Hearing his words in the Doctor's mouth was strange, so strange. He startled slightly, and Romana darted forward and steadied him. "Easy, you two."

"You're shorter than I expected," Jack told her dreamily. "But then… so am I…"

_Easy there._

Romana squeezed his (their) hands. "We can't do any more for you. We've got to get you to a hospital, and fast."

_Bast_, and Jack's borrowed hearts surged with longing. _My Bast_.

_We'll get you to her,_ the Doctor promised.

_You'll have to forget,_ Jack reminded him.

_I know._

Jack looked down with the Doctor's eyes at his own disembodied head and felt something huge and inexorable pull at him.

"Well, if it isn't the Face of Boe," he said.

* * *

Three days later:

"How does it feel?" Bast smiled tremulously at him, her eyes wet.

_Wonderful,_ he sighed, his face buried in the soft fur under her chin. _Love you, Bast._

"Sixteen years. Sixteen whole years. You're an idiot, Jack Harkness."

_As charged._

"This body will need maintaining, Jack. I know what you said about old habits…" and she grimaced ruefully, "and I'm certainly one of those now, but I never again want to see what I saw two days ago. Never again."

_I'm sorry, love._ Jack wound the strange new limbs around her, the sensation bizarrely familiar. He could feel the mechanical heart pumping away at his molasses-thick blood, and the whirring of tiny organic valves. _And you are not old! _I'm_ old! You're just a kid, they'll be locking me up._

"Jack," she tipped his chin up, her fur rubbing against the metal join around his neck. "I'm old. _You're_ ancient. Look at me."

His new elbow propping him up in the bed, Jack studied her, her soft green eyes, the insubstantial curve of her whiskers, her delicate ears that she never allowed to be seen in public. _You're beautiful_.

"And my fur is grey, my ears are rounded, my back teeth are gone and I'll be dead before you blink," she said sadly.

_Never say that,_ Jack reached out and his new hand hovered beside her face for two seconds. _May I?_

She nodded, and Jack carefully pulled two whiskers from her face. She wrinkled her nose. "That hurts, you know."

_You said I could,_ he reminded her. _Hand me that box?_

She passed it over. "What's in here? You've never brought it before."

_I keep it in a safe place,_ he said, opening it carefully. Dirty white dust greeted him, and he imagined he could still smell the loam of a city bathed in sunshine.

"What's it made of? Never seen anything like it," she marvelled.

_Wood_, Jack gently dropped the whiskers into the box. _There. Now you're with me always._

"Show me." And she pulled his face down to hers again.


	4. Chapter 4

"My Lord?"

_How many times, Hallor, do I need to ask you to call me Jack?_ Jack shifted uncomfortably. _I'll grow out of it in a couple of centuries._

Hallor fidgeted nervously. "I left room enough."

_Great._ Jack closed his eyes with a sigh. Three billion years, and no end in sight.

"My Lord… Jack?" Hallor asked in trepidation.

_It's fine, thank you Hallor. Your people have surpassed themselves. Now, I think what I'd really like is four grams of caruxin and some time alone._

"Certainly, my lord." The bioengineer bowed respectfully, then half-straightened, his eyes wide, "Um… I mean, Jack."

_There, you're getting the hang of it,_ and Jack grinned cynically. _Send Marval in, will you please? Thanks._

Hallor backed out of the room as fast as his short little legs would allow, and Jack allowed himself another sigh, shifting once more in the new hovercradle.

It had been two billion years since the constant mutations had permitted him to use a synthskin body. Now he rode an ongoing carousel of different styles of hovercradles or bio-platforms, discarded as he outgrew them.

It had been two days since the last of his children had died.

Jack didn't acknowledge the bow of the pharmacist as she sidled sinuously into his lushly - appointed chamber and began setting up the caruxin brazier. Marval looked up at her lord under her eyelashes as she busied herself at fanning the flames.

"You seem distracted, Jack," she said, familiarity making her bold.

_Privilege of the old, Marval, m'dear,_ he said dryly.

"Anything in particular?"

_Well, I can hear a group of farmers in Maxinadra… there's a dispute over a cow. A cow. Christ, these people can be dull._

Marval measured out the caruxin carefully. "You're the one who keeps them safe enough to be dull. What's a cow?"

_Looks a bit like the old Earth herd animal. Not really related though — the purple hide gives it away. _Jack stretched his vestigial limbs. _That ready yet?_

"Almost. Be patient."

Jack snorted. _Come back to me on your three billionth birthday and tell me about patience._

"Touché." Marval carefully set the caruxin bowl above the brazier. "There we go. You shouldn't take so much, you know."

_Sweetheart, I know better than almost anyone._ Jack inhaled deeply. _Oh, that's better._

"Tell me about that song again," Marval pulled her skirts about her as she sat down opposite him. "The one about the roses."

_It's just a children's rhyme._

"It's pretty, and the words are so strange."

_Can you remember it from last time?_ Jack could feel the waves of well-being washing over him as the caruxin took effect. The universe was abruptly no longer quite so cold, and he relaxed slightly, his fronds uncurling.

Marval frowned. "Ring-o-ring-o rosies… a pocket full of posies… Jack, I can't remember the next words."

_Atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down._ Jack laughed gently. _Such a cute song for such a morbid theme._

"I don't understand."

_There was once a plague. A terrible disease. And it killed hundreds of thousands of people…_

"On Earth?" Marval's face was awed. "Were you there?"

_Nah, I turned up a few centuries later. Well, the second time. Well… no, I lie, I once got rid of a Betelgeusian navigational system in the Great Fire of London._ Jack's darkened eyes crinkled. _My buyer was furious._

"I don't get it." Marval cocked her head. "Were you there or not?"

_I turned up there once,_ he replied softly. _When I was a different man. When I _actually was_ a man._

She knew this mood. "Jack, no matter how you change, you're still you. Still Jack Harkness."

_That's a laugh._ He drew himself up higher on his hovercradle. _I was human, Marv'. I once looked a lot like you. Actually, I was too damn handsome for my own good, got me in some trouble a time or two. But I was human… I could walk and talk and eat and hug and make love. I haven't been able to for centuries. Millennia._

Marval frowned. "But, your children…"

_Martha died two days ago,_ he snapped. _Martha's dead. All four died, all four didn't have this… this curse of immortality, of changing always and never dying. All four were infertile due to me. Doomed to this same goddamn half-life. And their fathers or mothers… they're dead too. Everyone's dead. Just me left._

"She had a good run," Marval placed a hand on Jack's leathery brow. "She had six thousand years, started a university, invented a propulsion unit…"

_For me,_ Jack said bitterly. _Because she couldn't stand seeing me unhappy._

"Jack. You're the ruler of this solar system. You can hear the thoughts of everyone in it. You've ensured peace and learning and happiness for tens of thousands of years. That's an achievement to be happy about!" Marval shook him slightly. "Everyone here loves you."

_No-one here _knows_ me, Marval San Cassaro. I'm the great big Face of Boe watching everything they do, like some mutant intergalactic Santa Claus. Not a person. Certainly not a man._ Jack's eyes narrowed slightly, and Marval's mind was filled with the sight of a tall man with dark hair, wrapped in a long grey coat. _That's me. That's how I still think of myself. _

"You look like Martha," said Marval in surprise.

_A bit. She took after her mother. The two I bore looked exactly like me back then._ And Marval's mind's eye shifted to four people, tall and straight in synthskin bodies, slightly overlarge heads framed with smaller versions of the fronds that ringed Jack. _Ianto, Rosie, Susan and Martha._

"So young," Marval said softly. "So Ianto and Susan were the pair you bore?"

_Yup._ Jack's mindtone was suffused in sorrow. _I didn't think the mutation had got that far… I knew my head was trying to mimic the functions of my lost body, but still, Ianto came as a massive shock._

"Oh, Jack," said Marval sadly, "I'm so, so sorry." She impulsively kissed his brow — it was hard but warm.

_They thought that carrying a bunch of flowers would save them,_ Jack said suddenly, harshly. _It didn't. And so they all fell down._

"What?"

_In the song._ Jack closed his huge, dark eyes again. _Top up the caruxin before you leave._

* * *

"Wake up, sleepyhead."

_That's not funny._

The Doctor rocked back on his heels. "I liked it."

_You would._ Jack blinked a couple of times, focusing on the slim, brown form before him. _You're early._

"Am I? Wouldn't know about that." The Doctor knelt down. "I'm out of my time-line. Yours, too."

And then Jack realised that this was not _his_ Doctor, his ancient, powerful and mischievous Doctor with the scruffy clothes, sharp black eyes and commanding presence. _You're too young. You shouldn't be here. How did you find me?_

"Questions, questions," the Doctor grinned. "Firstly, I'm as young as I ought to be — and that's not something I get to say every day — secondly, I'm here because a certain time-locked memory I had repressed managed to unlock itself, and thirdly, you're not hard to find, oh ruler of the Spindle Galaxy."

_A memory?_

"Of a certain fellow I rescued from the Daleks, back when I was me number eight."

_Oh._

"Yeah, _oh_. Honestly, Jack, did you think I'd never figure it out?" The Doctor folded his legs and leaned back on his hands. "I'm insulted."

_You said you'd forget,_ Jack said weakly. The sight of his second Doctor was torment — memories of a year shared in torture, a pair of long coats flapping in the wind, of guns and whiskey and people long dead. _You promised._

"I locked the memory, yes," the Doctor said patiently. "It was time-set, like an alarm clock. By the way, you ought to get one of those. Apparently you've been sleeping for 114 years."

_Not much to do between Ice-Ages,_ Jack replied caustically.

"Except caruxin, it seems," and the Doctor's tone was disapproving. "Never thought you'd stoop to drugs, Jack."

_Never thought I'd become an immortal sideshow curiosity, either, I'll bet,_ Jack shot back. _Don't you dare judge, Time Lord._

"Soon you won't be able to live without it, Jack," the Doctor said more gently.

_So what, I die? Encore,_ Jack spat. _I'm three billion years old, Doctor. I've outlived everyone I know, everyone I love, except you. And you hop about time-lines without a care — for all I know you hop straight from one meeting with me to the next. I do what I have to do to survive the centuries in between._

There was a hard, cold silence, and then the Doctor said flatly, "That's not Jack Harkness speaking."

_You're right. It's not. Now go away._

"No."

_**Go. Away.**_

"I won't leave you like this." The Doctor leaned back even further on his elbows. "No can do, Jacky-boy."

_Why are you here? Come to poke the Freak with a stick? Come to marvel at his _wrongness_? You should have left me to die with the Daleks, you should have left me dead in the Blitz! Why did you let me live, you bastard! To justify all your other mistakes? Am I the salve to your high-and-mighty conscience, you hypocrite! Get **out**, Doctor! At least the goddamn caruxin doesn't mock me with what I used to be!_ Jack closed his eyes and pushed with his mind at the form in front of him, which didn't budge.

"Blimey, you're strong," the Doctor muttered. "All I can do to stop my hair flying out here."

_I — said - Get the hell out of here!_ Jack hollered in his mind. The Doctor jumped to his feet.

"Now _there's_ Jack Harkness, oh yes!" he yelled, a grin splitting his thin face. "C'mon Captain, give us some more. Show me how wrong _I_ am! Come on!"

Jack screamed and lashed out at the Doctor's mind. The man staggered, and dropped to one knee, shaking. The sight was enough to halt Jack's storm of grief and fury.

_Doctor? Oh my god, Doctor, I'm so sorry…_

"Got… a mean left hook… there, Jack," the Doctor said weakly, wiping at the thin line of spittle from his mouth. "Ow."

_Sorry, sorry, I'm so sorry, are you okay? Doctor, please forgive me…_

"Jack."

_Yes, Doctor?_

"Shut up."

_Shutting up, sir._

The Doctor groaned, and leaned heavily on Jack. "Ow. I guess I deserved that."

_No, you didn't… I just took it out on…_

_"Ja-ack."_

_Shutting up again, sir._

The Doctor sighed, and patted the top of Jack's head where his long thin arm was stretched along his brow. "I did. I deserved that. I've manipulated you, at times. I've used you and your inability to die, oh, so many more. And it always seemed okay, because you _wanted_ to do it. For me." He slid down to lean his back against Jack's cheek, clasping his hands loosely between his knees. "I shouldn't have said that you were wrong, Jack. I shouldn't have come here — at least, not just to satisfy my own curiosity. I shouldn't have mocked you."

_I'd be worried if you stopped,_ admitted Jack, a bit bewildered.

The Doctor snorted softly.

Jack could feel the warmth of the body pressed against him, and a keening wail began to build deep in the heart growing slowly in his throat. _My children are all dead, _he whispered into the careful space between them.

_Oh, Jack. I'm so sorry. What were their names?_ the Doctor sent back, just as careful.

_You'll laugh._

_Promise I won't,_ and the Doctor gently reached out and let one of Jack's fronds curl about his wrist loosely. _I like these._

Jack almost smiled. _So you do. Said I'd fit in without a second glance on Phennik Three now. Except for the colour, and the… you know, no legs thing._

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Your children… they were happy? Good lives?"

_I think so. They were busy, mostly. Ianto and Rosie were adventurers,_ and Jack gave the Time-Lord a mental dig in the ribs. _They loved you._

"Ianto? _Rosie?_"

_Yeah._

The Doctor's expression was rapt. "What were the others called?"

_Martha was the youngest. Questioned everything._

"Aw, _brilliant!_" the Doctor smiled hugely. "So, you had three then?"

Jack did smile this time. _All I can tell you, Doctor. You'll find out later._

"Spoilsport."

_Never been accused of _that_ before._

"_Now_ you sound like you," the Doctor said fondly. He blew out a breath. "Had a daughter once."

_Thought you had a son._

The Doctor nodded slowly. "Yeah, officially… but I got an accidental daughter. On Messaline."

_You dirty old dog, you,_ said Jack, amused. Messaline… Messaline sounded familiar, for some reason.

"This is when I was barreling around with Donna," the Doctor said sadly. "They stick my arm in some stupid cloning thing and shazam, instant daughter. Two hearts and everything. Looked a lot like me number five. Donna named her Jenny. She died saving me."

_Doctor, I've met her!_ It clicked, and suddenly Jack couldn't send his thoughts fast enough. _On Phennik Three! The Sontaran invasion! Jenny —a blonde girl, she thought of Messaline and of being dead and coming back… and of_Dad._ Doctor, she was alive!_

The Doctor's body was vibrating with tension. "You're sure?"

_Doctor — she _babbled.

"She's alive," the Doctor said slowly, testing it in his mind. Then, "she's alive! My daughter is alive! Alive! Oh Jack, she's alive…" and his expression of jubilation fell at Jack's sad smile. "Oh Jack. It's not fair, is it."

_No. Nothing ever is._ Jack sighed. _I loved life, back then. So many planets, so much adventure. I hadn't any idea what loss was then._ He raised one gnarled eyebrow and looked down at the Time-Lord against him. _She kissed me, you know._

"_Jack Harkness!_"

_Well, how was I to know she was yours?_

"Jack. She was _babbling?_"

_Point._

The silence descended again, but this time it was warm and full of shared memory.

_Doctor?_

"Hmm?"

_Do me a favour?_

"Sure."

_Go back to Cardiff, 14th April, 2049. About 8pm. Please._

The Doctor twisted his body to look quizzically at Jack.

_Upstairs at a pub called the Stag and Hind. I need you._

"Of course… but why?"

_Because…_ and Jack's mind clung to that of his only constant, sprawled against him comfortably, _that's the first time I have no-one else._


	5. Chapter 5

AN: With thanks to Lewis Carroll. The Vorpal Sword is broken, and the Jabberwocks have won.

* * *

Hame's hands were gentle as she adjusted the cable plugged into the base of his misshapen skull. "Is this correct, My Lord?"

_Yes, thank you Hame,_ Jack answered. _Feels very strange, this cable.._

"Is it… too much?" Hame wrung her gentle hands in worry. "My Lord?"

_Not too much… just different from the old one._ Jack inhaled deeply, the caruxin-smoke inside his containment shell whirling slowly. Sometimes he saw patterns in the smoke, cities and faces and times long ago. _The monitor feeds?_

"Stable," she said after a perfunctory check. "The switchover is successful. My Lord, there must be another way to supply power to the motorway…"

_We have discussed this many times, my little Hame._ Jack leaned his forehead against the cool glass, peering out at her worried eyes, her greying fur. _I am dying. I have been dying for two thousand years now. However, I am still the most powerful psionic in the universe, and the mental energy I command is enough — barely — to run the automated systems of New New York for another twenty years. The strain is no contributor to my death. Time has done that. Now, do you remember the poem I taught you?_

She frowned, kneeling beside his case. "My Lord, the power…"

_Ah no, Hame my dear. That conversation is done. The poem?_

She bowed her head, her veil sighing by her ear. "I don't understand it."

_Of course. It's nonsense, and meant to be. But I like to hear you say it._ Jack's ossified mouth tilted slightly into a near approximation of a smile. _You have a beautiful voice, my little Hame._

She smiled back tremulously. "Thank you, my Lord." She sat up a little straighter, her greying snout wrinling slightly. "Um…"

_'Twas brillig…_ Jack prompted gently. She nodded absently, her lovely eyes unfocussed as she continued:

" 'And the slithy toves,  
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:  
All mimsy were the borogoves,  
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!  
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!  
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun  
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:  
Long time the manxome foe he sought -  
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,  
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,  
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,  
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,  
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through  
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!  
He left it dead, and with its head  
He went...' "

She broke off as a shrieking, coughing, grating sound filled the air. "My Lord?"

Jack's great darkened eyes had closed as Hame's mellifluous voice washed over him in the bubbling, fluid syllables of Carroll's ode to nonsense, but now snapped open in recognition. _He can't…_

The unmistakable outline of the TARDIS was materialising in the corner of the ruined Council control room. _It's not time — it's too soon! He _said_ it was too soon!_

"My Lord, what is it?" Hame pressed herself up against the glass of his containment shell. "What is it?" Her beautiful voice was terrified.

_Not a danger,_ Jack replied in bemusement as the light on top of the eponymous blue box flickered and guttered and finally went out. _Just… unexpected. Relax, Hame. You met him once._

"Him? Not…"

The door swung open, and the Doctor fell heavily onto the plascrete flooring of the skeleton-strewn chamber. "Jack!" he gasped immediately, hands and mind grasping blindly.

_I'm here._ Jack sent out a tendril of support — but he had so little left that was not running the city. _I'm here, Doctor._

His old friend reeled against his telekinetic help. "She's…" The twenty-fifth Doctor broke off into a storm of coughing. "She's…"

_Breathe, Doctor. Hame, help him._ Jack could feel the pain, the pure anguish that rose from the Doctor like steam. Hame gave Jack a wide-eyed look of alarm, before picking up her skirts and assisting the struggling man to sit. The Doctor gasped like a fish, his rake-thin chest heaving whilst his once-coppery hair fell over tight-clenched eyes. Jack wished he could hold him.

_What is it,_ he asked in the softest possible mindtone. The Doctor cracked open one greenish eye at his friend.

"Hello, Jack…" he croaked. "Sorry… about dropping in on you like that, but… I knew you'd be…" he broke off into coughing again, and behind him, the TARDIS gave a long subterranean moan, like a whale singing its last.

_Doctor,_ Jack began again, but the Doctor held up one pale, freckled hand.

"The TARDIS is dying," he said weakly.

Jack's mouth fell open.

"And if she's dying," the Doctor continued with a desperate laugh, "then so am I."

_No!_ Jack sent fiercely. _I won't... you can't! You MUSTN'T!_

"Mustn't I?" The Doctor rolled his head back, closing his eyes. "You can't stop it, my Jack. I knew you'd be here. I want to die here. So does she."

_I won't let you,_ Jack growled into his mind.

"It's taking everything you have to keep the motorway moving, isn't it," the Doctor said in a monotone, his eyes still closed. "You've barely enough left to keep using mindspeech."

_I don't care. I **won't** let you die!_

"Jack," The Doctor opened his eyes now and the thick hanks of white hair spilled over his forehead once more, "I've almost had two regeneration cycles. I'm older than any Gallifreyan has ever been, ever wanted to be. I've seen the universe born, I saw it die… I've been to every single planet in the Space-Time continuum, and a few that aren't. I've loved. I've been loved. I've done everything I ever wanted to do, and now it's time to go. My time." He crawled painfully over to Jack's containment shell, and rested his own lined forehead over where Jack's pressed against the glass, just as he had once on a blast screen at the end of the universe. "Everything has its time…"

_No!_ Jack wailed into the air, willing those old, old words to stop completing themselves in his mind. _Not you! That does **not** apply here, Doctor! That's not you! You go on! You have all times, all places …!_

"And none of them mine," the Doctor's mouth quirked slightly. "This is _my _time, Jack."

_I'll stop you,_ Jack gabbled frantically. _I'll keep you alive. You can use my blood, synthesise something… I can keep the TARDIS alive, I know I can, you can run her from me, part of me is her, anyway…_

"She wants to go, poor old girl," the Doctor said softly, love and sorrow saturating his voice, and Jack almost screamed in frustration and pain. "That last flight was all she had. And she's tired. Alone for so long, just me and her…"

_I could keep you safe! I could keep you alive! Doctor, can't you see…_

Hame stood, her large eyes full of tears. "My Lord," she said quietly. "You cannot. You are dying. They are dying. Even if you could prolong their lives, they would die when you did. There are millions of other people out there who will die the minute you do. Do you not think of them?"

_Hame, don't…_ Jack pleaded.

"The motorway, Jack," the Doctor pressed a palm against the glass, just over Jack's brow. "You can't save us. But you can save them."

_Then what use am I at all,_ Jack wept, _if I can't save you? What good are all the lives in the universe if __you _don't live?

"You don't mean that," the Doctor said tenderly.

_I do!_ Jack said wildly. _I mean it! You've got to live, Doctor! Everybody lives, remember, everybody's got to this time, and everybody includes _you!_ I don't care about anything else, so long as you're safe…_

"Ja-ack," the Doctor reached his arms as far around the glass as possible, his cheek pressing into the glass. "I'm the safest I've ever been - right now."

The hopelessness hit Jack like a blow, and he reeled back against the support frame at the back of his shell. _No…_ he sobbed, great shuddering breaths of the caruxin-tainted smoke hitching in and out of his lungs. _Don't leave me, Doctor…_

The Doctor's legs buckled slightly, and he leaned heavily against Jack's casing. "Oh, you see me again, Jack. Very, very soon. You saw me not long ago, after all." And the Doctor gave the grin that had lived behind Jack's eyes his whole long life. "Textbook enigmatic, by the way."

* * *

The TARDIS weakened slowly, over the weeks. The Doctor hobbled in and out with Hame's assistance, doing what he could. Jack was absorbing her pain, but sometimes her mind touched his in warmth and not in agony. Then one day she touched his mind in inquiry, and he felt her start of recognition.

_You remember me, old girl,_ Jack murmured to her, and felt the bright gold glow in his mind pulse slightly. _Captain Jack Harkness. Sorry I shot you up in the 21st Century._

There was a dancing feeling to the golden light — and Jack got the distinct impression that the TARDIS was laughing. There was a thud from inside, and then the Doctor hollered, "Jack! Stop flirting with my ship!"

_Why not? Never stopped you!_ Jack hollered back. _Or are you seriously telling me that those weren't 'love taps' you always gave her?_

The dancing glow that was the TARDIS' mind was bubbling now, and Jack could hear the answering laughter from the Doctor. He smiled his slow smile, and nudged her mind gently. _He's not bad. You picked well, old girl._

He could feel the warmth of her love for the silly, wonderful old man who puttered about her, carefully re-routing her systems, closer to her than any Time-Lord was ever permitted to be. Abruptly, she joined their minds together and wrapped her Doctor in all that love — ancient, patient, passionate and all-consuming. Her touch upon the Doctor's mind was as intimate and as gentle as a kiss.

Then, surprisingly, she enveloped Jack in her love for _him_ — her unexpected passenger who fixed things and patted her and talked to her and kept a piece of her safe against the changing universe. He could feel the effort that reaching out to her beloved pilot and her old friend, one last time, had cost her.

_Love you too, old girl,_ he said sadly. She spasmed in pain, and Jack cradled her gently, but the waves of distress did not subside and she started to keen into his mind for the Doctor, where was her Doctor, her Time-Lord…

"She's going!" the Doctor yelled in horror. "Nononono… you can't, oh my beautiful ship… no!" All wide eyes and wild hair, the Doctor appeared at the blue doors. "Jack…!"

_I felt it,_ Jack groaned with the strain. _I'm taking more. Hame?_

The Doctor reeled back. "No, Jack, you'll go too!" But the TARDIS cried out for him, and the Doctor wheeled and pressed his forehead against the painted wood, murmuring desperate words of encouragement. "I'm here, darling, I'm right here, old girl, you'll pull through this…"

_I can't hold this!_ Jack gasped in shock. She was pulling him down into death with her, clinging to the spark of the vortex inside Jack as to a brother. _Doctor!_

"Jack, don't… don't…" but the Doctor didn't seem to know whether he wanted Jack to hold on tighter to her, or let go.

"My Lord, stop this! Doctor," Hame pulled the aged Time-Lord from the TARDIS and he fell hard against the floor once more, "You cannot do more than you have, and to prolong agony is the ultimate cruelty." Her chest heaved as she spoke, but her magnificent voice was full of compassion. "Doctor. Tell her you love her… and let her go."

The silence was broken by the TARDIS' deep wail of pain, and the Doctor's broken breath. Eventually, he bowed his white head in defeat.

"Let her go, Jack," he whispered — but it was as though the words were being dragged out of a throat made of broken glass. "I'll carry her out."

The Doctor's mental presence, so long devoted to maintaining the TARDIS' core energies, now supplanted Jack carefully, supporting her life and absorbing her pain. Jack felt strangely empty, now that the bright gold firefly no longer flitted against his mind.

The Doctor's eyes were greenish-black hollows that quickly flooded as he struggled with himself, watching his home and friend die. He stroked the frame slowly, and the TARDIS' mental weeping became a low sigh of sorrow, which silenced as the Doctor leaned forward and pressed a kiss against the peeling doorjamb. The Time-Lord and his TARDIS remained that way as though carven of stone, in a moment that hung in the air like the striking of a bell, before the Doctor tore himself away from her. Finally, he raised one shaking hand and, as though forcing himself, clicked his fingers.

The doors creaked shut with dreadful finality, and the golden glow in Jack's mind sputtered, and faded.

The Doctor threw himself at the doors that would now never open at a click to a gold-glowing heart, beating at them until he ran out of strength, crying her name in a language that Jack could not now understand.

* * *

Hame carried more water to the Doctor's bedside. He was fading quickly now that the symbiotic relationship with his ship was severed. The Doctor's mind clung to Jack's in frantic need, but the silence was so tomblike and unnatural, it was as though he wasn't there at all.

"Here," she murmured, and raised the brittle old body up to sip the fresh water — a real luxury in the Bliss-contaminated city. The Doctor drank a little and broke off into more coughing.

_You need to drink it,_ Jack said softly.

_Why?_ the Doctor sent back. Useless for him to speak, now that a translation circuit closer to him than breath could not choose his language. _Dying here, Jack._

_Snap,_ Jack retorted. _Just drink it to make me happy._

The Doctor sighed, and Hame, having recognised signs of an exchange, raised the glass again. The Doctor drank obediently, and Hame smoothed his covers with a practiced hand.

"He called you Jack," she ventured into the echoing silence.

_That was my name, once,_ Jack said, careful to broadcast to both Hame and the Doctor. _I was called Captain Jack Harkness._

_Still are,_ the Doctor remarked bluntly, but Jack was pleased to note he'd also broadcast to Hame and himself. _I can't believe you chose your name from your pin-up days._

Jack's lips twisted into his slow, glacial grin. _No-one ever made the connection except you._

_And Jenny._

_And Jenny._ Jack sighed. _She died well._

_She died how I always expected to die,_ the Doctor struggled to a sitting position. _Fighting some power-mad lunatic. She lived well._

_That she did._ Jack breathed in slowly, the caruxin whirling hypnotically. _So many people we loved and lost._

_I miss Susan. Both Susans,_ the Doctor sent wistfully as Hame tiptoed away. _My granddaughter…_

_You told me so many stories. Did you ever go back and find her?_

_Yes. She'd lived a long time — even though she never had the Rassilon Imprimature. And she was very happy with David._ The Doctor rubbed slowly at one eye. _And our daughter. I named our beautiful daughter after her._

_I still can't believe I let you convince me,_ Jack said with dry humour. _Told you I'd get stretch-marks._

The Doctor let out a bark of laughter. _Still vain, poster-boy?_

_Hey, look at this face. You think it comes naturally?_ joked Jack. _Susan made me so cross sometimes. All those daredevil schemes._

_That was your side in her, not me,_ the Doctor protested.

_Was not. Anyway, you encouraged it._

_Of course I did!_ the Doctor was indignant now. _You gave me a precious gift, Jack, and that gift gave me Susan — and another chance. Not like I hadn't had enough, but anyway — I didn't mess it up. I messed it up royally with my son, I left my granddaughter alone for seventy years, and I missed half of Jenny's life because I thought she was dead. But I was there for our daughter. I was there. That feels good._

_You've always been there for me, too,_ Jack said quietly.

_Well, I love you._ The Doctor paused as Jack's mind rang with the words he never thought he'd hear. _There. That wasn't so hard. I love you, I love you, I love you._ The Doctor scratched at his chin with a hand trembling with palsy._Nothing to be afraid of._

_I wish I could hold you,_ Jack's mindtone was fervent. _I have loved you from the first day I met you._

_Thought you wanted Rose,_ the Doctor smiled weakly. _I did, too._

_No, really? Never used these eye things before,_ Jack nudged him mentally, and felt the Doctor's answering chuckle._I wasn't picky, you were both gorgeous. You have a knack for picking the stunners, don't you?_

_Oi! They pick me, thank you very much._ The Doctor swung his shaking legs off the pallet and carefully stood. _Oooh, headspin. Lovely._

_Careful,_ Jack braced the Doctor's body again. He was so thin and brittle, it was as though he were about to fly away._What are you doing?_

_Don't want to die in bed._ The Doctor tottered cautiously to Jack, and fell against the glass. _Want to hold you too._

_Doctor,_ Jack choked. _Doctor, I…_

_Shhh. It's okay, Jack,_ the Doctor soothed him. _Now, where's the door on this contraption, hmm?_

_Around the left,_ Jack said in resignation, and watched the thin old hands fiddle with the lock, before the caruxin-laden smoke eddied with the movements of another body. _Doctor?_

_Can barely see you in all this. No wonder your eyes changed colour,_ said the Doctor peevishly. _Ah, there's my Jack._A small hand patted its way over his brow and the Doctor slid down to sit on the floor of the containment unit. _You know, this is really quite pleasant. Bet you can't hear all that well, though._

_Doctor, what need have I got to hear with my ears?_ Jack laughed. _Sometimes you seem to forget._

_Doesn't seem right,_ admitted the Doctor easily. _You're Jack Harkness. My brave Jack. The Face of Boe is a guy who speaks in a much deeper and posher voice, and represents New New York in the Enigmatic Games._

_Couldn't have you recognise me,_ Jack's lips once more curved slowly into his smile. _And it was fun._

_Jack?_

_Yeah?_

_You haven't changed at all._ The Doctor nudged Jack's cheek with a bony elbow. Their laughter filled the tiny space like the smoke.

_Remember the whiskey?_ whispered Jack after their laughter was spent.

_I remember our little Martha Jones drunk on… champagne,_ the Doctor smirked. _She was hilarious. Called me a Timey-Wimey moron and… passed out._

_No more bananas,_ Jack breathed into the air. The Doctor's hand buried itself into the profusion of tendrils that crowned Jack's head now. _Oh, that feels so good._

_I remember **that,**_ the Doctor said archly. _Jack?_

_Hmm?_

_I'm going now._  
_  
__Not… not just yet._

_I can't stay any more. And this is the best way I've ever seen to die. Carpe diem, and… all that._

_Don't leave me…_

_You'll… see me soon, Jack. I won't… know it's you, of course._

_When?_

_Very soon… actually. And Martha, too. You… enigmatic thing, you._

_What, when I…_

_Yup. So you see, Jack, it's not… so bad. We die each holding the… other._

_Just not at the same time._

_Jack…_

_Yeah?_

Do me… a favour…

Anything.

Bury me… in the TARDIS. She'll be… an empty box now. But when you go… get Hame… to bury you there too.

…

Here… comes… my time. Jack?

Yes, Doctor?

I love you.

I love you too.

My... brave Jack... 

~**~

Hame crept back into the chamber. A white figure was slumped against the glass of the containment shell, long arms wrapped loosely around the darker, blocky shape of her Lord. His face was bowed over the body of his companion, and water glittered over the cracked, leathered cheeks.

"My Lord?" she quavered.

Jack's face slowly rose and his eyes, desolate and heartbroken, pierced her utterly.

_The poem,_ he said hollowly, and he had never been so lost or so utterly, utterly in love. _It was about him._  


__

~Fin~


End file.
